Thank you for the reviews on the last chapter!
And my god, the story is being bouncy again.
Chapter Fifty-Four: Expanding the Covenant
Snape did not like to think of how much the past two days had hurt him, when the term began again and Harry was not there for it.
He did not like to think of it partly because he was bound to start blasting things apart if he did, and partly because he was already busy setting things in motion for vengeance on James Potter, and partly because it was obvious that Draco Malfoy was suffering worse than he was.
Draco had trailed into Potions class that day with eyes so blank that Snape had thought at first he must be sleepwalking. He'd assigned Draco to partner with Blaise Zabini, only to rouse the boy into a screaming temper tantrum, of which the only distinguishable words were "regular partner" and "Harry." Blaise had confessed that Draco had been impossible to live with for the past few days. He was liable to flicker between savage sorrow and equally savage hexing. Snape had given him a Calming Draught and sent him to the hospital wing.
He tried to imagine what had happened, and wound up setting those thoughts aside, too. What mattered was dealing with what Harry had left behind—a thoroughly shattered Draco and a brother who had returned to school saying he had no idea where Harry had gone.
And James Potter, of course—James Potter who had responded to Snape's letters about Harry by turning post owls away from Lux Aeterna.
Snape wondered if he was thinking of taking vengeance because it was the easier course, but then pushed it aside, because that was of a piece with thinking about how much the last two days had hurt him.
He was checking the temperature of the potion he'd chosen as the first part of his revenge when someone knocked on the door to his office. "Come in," Snape snapped, not looking away from the potion. When it bubbled, then he would able to dip out a vial of it and douse the fire under the cauldron, but he had to watch for the exact moment when it bubbled. This was probably only a student come for a detention, anyway, which made it less important than this was.
The potion bubbled. Snape dipped out his vial, and then flicked his wand to douse the fire and turned to deal with his erring student.
Harry bit his lip and looked up at him. "Um, hi," he said.
Snape cast a spell that should remove a glamour. Harry remained stubbornly the same. He cast one that should dispel the solid illusions that Harry had used before to trick him and Draco. Nothing happened. He murmured, "Legilimens," and found himself pushing into a startled but accepting, and very familiar, mind.
He caught a glimpse of a shining maze of silvery light, and Harry walking along its twists and turns, before Harry gently firmed his Occlumency shields and pushed him out. "I want to tell you about it," he was saying, "rather than just having you read it out of my memories."
Snape came back to himself, and stood breathing for a moment, unable to think of anything else to do. He had been tipped from vengeance, something he understood, to a moment full of violent fear and relief and joy. He wasn't used to being here. What was the right course of action?
Harry settled that by moving forward and embracing him. "I missed you," he muttered, in a voice like and unlike his own. The Harry who had left them for the Easter holidays could not have said anything like this. "I'm sorry that I caused you so much worry, but I honestly thought I needed to enter the Maze. And it did work. I know what to do next, and it helped me and healed me and—" Harry let out a sharp breath and shook his head, a movement that Snape felt against both his chest and his arms. His arms had somehow risen without his own volition and settled themselves around Harry. "It left me this way," Harry said, and moved forward and lifted his head so that Snape could see his face again.
His eyes shone. There were lines of relaxed tension around Harry's forehead that Snape had never thought to see relax in his lifetime. He gave a smile, and it was the smile of someone who had witnessed something very good and great.
Snape stared some more, and was about to speak when a burst of light came into being above Harry's shoulder. Fawkes appeared and landed there, his head twisted as he combed his feathers with his beak. Then he seemed to notice Snape for the first time, and gave a casual trill.
"Fawkes bonded with me," said Harry, as if that were the most normal thing in the world, and stroked the phoenix's shoulder affectionately.
Snape spent a moment waiting for the boulder to fall. His life did not change this way, moving towards joy. There had to be a counterweight. Perhaps his left arm would begin to burn in a moment, announcing the Dark Lord's full return to strength.
But Harry smiled at him, and Snape found his tongue.
"You stupid, idiotic, imbecilic, moronic, idiotic—"
"You said that one already," said Harry, and had the audacity to laugh at him.
"You did not tell me about entering this Maze!" Snape roared, finding his tongue at last. Vaguely, he was aware of raising his voice, which he normally never did. Mostly, he was just aware that Harry appeared to be merrily mocking his fine display of temper. "You did not tell me that you intended to endanger your life and sanity and disappear for what could have been months!"
Harry eyed him patiently. "Of course I didn't," he said. "You wouldn't have let me go to Lux Aeterna if I had."
"That is not the point!" Snape hissed, finally getting control of his voice. "Do you know what it did to those of us you left behind, those of us who had no way of knowing what happened and no reason to believe you would ever return? I am badly off enough—" the admission burned his tongue, but he knew what he had to say next would shatter any concern just for him in Harry's mind "—but Mr. Malfoy is in the hospital wing, and even your brother goes about as pale as if he had just realized his own stupidity."
Harry's grin disappeared. "Draco's in the hospital wing?"
"Of course." Snape folded his arms. "You did not believe he was here? He would not have let me speak with you so long without interruption, but sprung on you and perhaps done something unforgivable, or Unforgivable." He shuddered slightly. He did not wish to be there to see the two boys' reunion. He was sure it would be even more emotional than this one, and this one was already too much so.
"I—I didn't know." Harry turned distractedly for the door, obviously meaning to burst through it at once and pester Madam Pomfrey for permission to see Draco.
"Harry." Snape reached out and caught the shoulder Fawkes wasn't sitting on. Harry turned and looked up at him.
Snape took a deep breath, and burned his own tongue again. "I was worried about you. I missed you. I am glad that you found peace and happiness in your Maze, but you could have told us that that is what you were seeking."
"You wouldn't have let me go." Harry gave a fretful tug against the hand on his shoulder.
Snape ruthlessly buried any hurt that caused him, making himself remember that Harry had hugged him of his own free will. "Perhaps not, but you might have been able to persuade me. And as I do not enjoy feeling constant worry like that and having my ability to work destroyed," he said, moving back onto territory he understood. "You will have detention every Tuesday and Thursday night for the rest of the year, starting at eight'o'clock." At least then he knew where the boy would be for a few hours a few times a week.
"Professor Snape—"
"In this matter, I am not your professor," Snape interrupted. "I am your guardian. And I do not wish you to think that I will simply nod and stand back while you risk your life."
"I've never thought that," Harry muttered, and gave another little tug towards the door.
Snape restrained him. "And what did you believe would happen when you came out of the Maze? Or what did you think would happen if you died there, and never returned, and we did not know what had occurred?"
"I—" Harry's exuberance dimmed for the first time, and he lowered his eyes. "I didn't know," he whispered. "I thought I needed to find some solution to my problems in freeing the magical creatures, and I didn't think beyond that. I'm sorry."
"You must accept some restraint," Snape said quietly. "If it is the restraint of those who care about you, that makes it more precious than the impersonal grip of hands which do not." That was something Dumbledore had told him long ago, and though the man had altered, that saying was still wise. "I have asked for promises from you, Harry, and you have broken them. I have trusted to your own emotions to restrain you, and they have not worked. Your other emotions, the ones that tell you you must be a sacrifice to be worth something—"
"The Maze taught me I didn't," Harry whispered, and lifted his head to smile at Snape through tears in his eyes. "I'm going to have trouble remembering that, but I can think about it now, since I just came out of the Maze. It showed me that I didn't have to be a sacrifice, and that my own life is just as important as other people's lives. If I can keep hold of that, I can live a very different life."
Snape closed his eyes, and this time he was the one who pulled Harry close to him and held him there, making Fawkes utter an indignant little squawk and vanish. Harry remained obediently still for a moment, even hugging back, before he wriggled. "I should go to Draco," he whispered.
Snape nodded, and let him go. "You did not see him when you came through the Floo in the hospital wing?" he asked, because it still seemed strange.
Harry blinked. "Oh. We didn't return by Floo. Dad Apparated me to Hogsmeade, and we walked from there." He held up a hand before Snape could say anything, and went on, "And I know that you think this is his fault, somehow. It's not. He didn't know I was going to go into the Maze, and neither did Connor. I never mentioned it. Please don't take vengeance on him for this."
For this. Snape grabbed hold of and treasured that phrase. In a way, it was easy for him to promise this. The notion that James Potter had no connection to Harry's face looking as if he'd bathed in sunrises was pleasing. "I promise," he said gravely. "And now, go see Draco. He is longing to see you."
Harry gave Snape a quick nod and smile, and then slipped out of his office.
Snape turned towards his cauldron, and looked at it and the vial of the potion in his hand.
He waved his wand, and Vanished both.
If he was going to keep his word to Harry, better that he did not have such a temptation nearby.
He kept his glance away from the locked desk in a corner of his office, too, because there the temptation was greater still, inspired anew each time he looked at another memory in the Pensieve Potion.
Snape shook his head and forced the thoughts away for one night. Harry was back, and he was free. That would suffice.
Draco woke slowly. He knew something had changed, that something was right which had been wrong, but the Calming Draught covered his mind with such a maze of oblivion that it took him long moments to force his eyes open and focus his empathy on the new presence in the room.
No, not new at all. Old, and familiar, and beloved.
Draco put out a hand, and felt it claimed and securely held. Another hand touched his forehead, shaking with something that might have been hesitancy or might have been remorse, but it was there. And Draco knew something of what it meant. Harry had not often touched him first.
"Harry," he whispered, and didn't make it a question. The Calming Draught was almost gone, he discovered, and his empathy was not swinging wildly now, trying to find its focus, as had happened earlier today. It had its focus. He sat up in bed, slowly, and turned his head, slowly, and opened his eyes, slowly.
Harry jerked his head up. He'd been sitting with it bowed. He looked at Draco now with wide eyes.
"Can you forgive me?" he whispered. "I—"
Draco narrowed his eyes and looked past the words, which didn't matter anyway, to the emotions. Harry was feeling sorrow like cool green ivy, but just beyond that was something else, something hardly dimmed, something that—
Draco cried out and put a hand over his eyes as sunlight appeared to explode on his face. Sunrise, from a mountain. Warm sun on deep green leaves. Joy, and wonder, and relief so great that Draco thought he might have fallen into a coma if he'd been near Harry when it was new.
Harry let out a choked laugh and hugged him fiercely. "Yes," he whispered. "I went into the Maze, Draco, and it showed me—it showed me a bunch of things that I never knew were true. That my mother didn't love me." His voice sank on that, as if he hadn't much practice saying it aloud. "That I'm worth just as much as other people. That I don't have to constantly sacrifice myself in order to justify my existence." He faltered and fell silent.
Draco opened his eyes. Harry held and met his gaze. Terror tightened the lines of his face, but that joy still mingled with it, so that Draco thought he might know what it was like to sit on a broom a thousand feet above the ground and then push out and fall into the clear morning air.
"That I love you," said Harry steadily, "and that I can love you."
Draco blinked, rapidly. He hoped that Harry didn't expect him to lean forward or lie back down. He didn't think he could move at the moment, with emotions storming his body like soldiers at a gate.
Harry did it for him, leaning forward and gently kissing him. It was the same sort of light caress that they'd shared on the first day of spring, and Harry blushed fiercely as he pulled back again.
"I shouldn't be doing this, you're sick," he whispered, and eased Draco back so that he lay flat on the bed again.
Draco caught and held his hands, and said, "Madam Pomfrey might not agree, Harry, but for my part, I think you can do it as often as you like."
Harry just muttered something about Malfoys and their notions of mediwizardry, and then squeezed Draco's left wrist and let it go. He left his right hand tangled with Draco's, though. "What happened?" he asked softly. "Madam Pomfrey said you'd gone hysterical."
Draco frowned at him. "You didn't come back, you prat. What was I supposed to do, assume you were having a happy holiday somewhere and just forget about you? My empathy went out of control. I was feeling too many emotions and had no place to put them. The worry and the magic combined, and of course they dropped me." He didn't care if he was ranting by the end. Madam Pomfrey's only other patient was a sixth-year Ravenclaw student who'd somehow managed to Transfigure her arm into a chicken wing, and Draco didn't care if he woke her up. He was entitled to shout. Harry had left him here, damn it.
Harry frowned at him, and said the last thing that Draco had expected at that particular point in time. "Draco, you can't control your empathy when I'm not around?"
Draco looked the other way. "I didn't say that," he muttered. "I didn't—that wasn't the point of my rant, Harry."
"Answer me, Draco." The grip on his right hand firmed.
"It's a lot easier when you're around," said Draco. "You provide me with a level of familiarity and focus. I'm interested in what you feel, and you have strong emotions, so of course I can concentrate on you. And it's fine at a place like the Manor, where there are only a few people around and I can separate out each person's feelings and learn who they are quickly."
"But in Hogwarts without me," said Harry, not even bothering to let the question trail off. Draco could feel him staring at the side of his head. Having Harry's full attention had always been pleasant for him. He hadn't realized how overwhelming it could be when he didn't want to answer the question.
I don't have to lie here and listen to this, Draco thought abruptly. He's the one who did something wrong, not me. He's the one who went away and led to this collapse in the first place. He dragged himself up and narrowed his eyes at Harry. Harry already had his narrowed, so this led to a staring contest for over a minute before Draco shook his head furiously.
"You can't intimidate me like that, Harry," he said. "You left us. You lied."
Harry nodded, but his eyes didn't fall and his face didn't look less mulish. "I did," he said. "I was wrong, and I'm sorry for that. And I thought you were working on controlling your empathy, Draco, so that you didn't need one person near you all the time to act as an anchor. I certainly believed that you could distinguish other people's emotions from your own, and even bear them when you were agitated yourself. I suppose I was wrong about that."
Draco winced. "Harry…"
"The Maze changed that for me, Draco." Harry leaned nearer, and Draco squirmed. Is this the way he feels when everyone in the Great Hall is looking at him? I mean, I've felt it from him, but being stripped naked myself is no promenade. "I know something, now, about how you might love me, and feel when I'm in danger. That's why I'm more remorseful now than I would have been about this just a week ago. And I know that I love you. That means that I am concerned about you, damn it, and what happened to you. Just as concerned, just as worried, and with just as much right to get angry if you let something like this happen to you because you weren't working on controlling your empathy."
Draco swallowed, and tried to keep up the anger. It didn't work that well when he felt as if he were rolling in warmth.
"So," Harry went on, seeming to ignore the change of expression in Draco's face, "I want you to work harder on the empathy. Try to control it when I'm not around the way you would if I were there. Learn to distinguish between other people's feelings and your own. I believe it's changed you, but I don't want it to change you so much that you keep fainting in class." He raised his eyebrows. "That wouldn't really be becoming to a Malfoy, would it?"
Draco flushed at the thought of what his parents would say when they found out he'd fainted in class, and why. "Um," he said. "No."
Harry nodded. "Then I think that you should learn this, Draco. I'll help you."
"I don't want to add another duty to your—"
Harry had the audacity to laugh at him. "Do you even realize what you sound like, Draco?" he said. "Like a Gryffindor trying to convince me he can stand on his own when he's bleeding from both legs."
"I am no Gryffindor," said Draco, wincing as he remembered his unsuccessful attempts to get Connor Potter to go away and leave him alone this afternoon. Connor had acted as though someone had to be there at Draco's bedside, so it might as well be him. That he'd been doing it out of a sense of obligation to his brother made it intolerable. Draco had finally snarled at him and driven him away, but the length of time it took had also been intolerable.
"Good," said Harry. "So that means that I'll help you learn to control your empathy, then."
Draco blinked. "When did I agree to that?"
"When you didn't speak fast enough to prevent it," said Harry. "And also when you didn't go far enough in your resolve to control it." He gave Draco a stern glance, and stood. There was still a sense of sunshine as he looked down at him, though, and Draco smiled, deeply smug that he'd managed to coax this emotion out of Harry. Harry shook his head at him, and then broke into a reluctant smile himself. "We'll make an excellent empath out of you yet," Harry muttered, as he covered Draco up with one of his blankets.
"Stay here with me," Draco whispered, catching at Harry's wrist.
Harry hesitated, and then shook his head and sat back down. "Just until you fall asleep, then."
It turned out that Draco had wanted Harry to lie down in the bed next to him, while Harry preferred to stay in the chair, and there was a short argument about that. Harry won it by default when his amusement and joy grew so warm that Draco slipped into a half-doze, which gradually turned into real sleep. He felt one hand holding his wrist and the other slipping through his hair to bare his forehead, as though he had a scar there himself. Draco sighed, and reminded himself that Harry was alive and safe and loved him, and let his fears be lulled.
"I should have known."
Harry started and turned around. Connor was standing behind him, arms folded across his chest, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
"I should have known that you would come to his side the moment you got back," he said.
Harry ducked his head. "I didn't, at first. I thought he was with Snape, and it took me a little while to find out he wasn't." He hesitated, unsure of what to say to his brother. He didn't know how angry Connor was with him.
"Let's put it this way," said Connor. "Your going into the Maze made me frantic, and made Dad frantic, and made the rest of my Easter holiday tense, and lost Gryffindor a hundred points in Potions today, and had me sitting beside Draco bloody Malfoy this afternoon and trying to comfort him."
Harry blinked at Draco, who had gone to sleep with a faint smile on his lips but didn't show any sign of relinquishing Harry's hand. "He didn't mention that."
"Yes, well, it was a highly uncomfortable experience for both of us," Connor snapped. He ran a hand down his face and sighed. "Harry, when are you going to stop doing stupid shite?" he asked wearily.
"I don't have as much need to do it any more," said Harry. "The Maze showed me the past, and the present, and it—well. It taught me a lot of things." He took a deep breath. "Most especially, it taught me that I don't need to do things like go into the Maze just because it might benefit someone else."
"That's why you went into the Maze," said Connor.
Harry nodded.
"Harry, you don't have to save the whole bloody world," said Connor, and then stopped and listened to his own words. "Well," he conceded. "Maybe you do. But that doesn't mean you have to do it alone." He turned his head, and his eyes pierced Harry. "Just because not everyone agrees with you about house elves doesn't mean you've lost. Did you know that Hermione and I are both refusing to let house elves clean up after us, and it's only a matter of time before we make Ron break down and learn the charms that he needs?"
Harry swallowed. "I didn't know that, no."
"That's because you never bloody ask," said Connor. "Bloody Slytherin prat. You just assume you're alone, and you don't ask." He paused and studied Harry with a sharp gaze that made him acutely uncomfortable. "So ask from now on, and we'll be glad to tell you when we think you're making sense and when you're being an idiot."
Harry only nodded again, unable to think of what else he would say.
Connor sighed. "I knew you would come back," he said. "I tried to tell Malfoy that, but he doesn't listen to me. Something about only needing to listen to one Potter, and I wasn't him."
Harry snorted in spite of himself. Connor squinted at him. "Oh, yes, you think it's funny," he said. "That's because you weren't here when I was trying to talk to him. Gryffindors and Slytherins can get along fine, I think. It's just Gryffindors and Malfoys who don't."
Harry grinned at him. "Thank you for trying, Connor."
"Don't run off like that again, and I won't have to."
"I'll try not to."
Connor shook his head. "The best I can hope for, I suppose." He stepped up to Harry and hugged him tightly. Harry hugged him back with one arm, since Draco still wouldn't let go of his other hand. "And if you tell Malfoy that I came back here to check on him, then I'll hex you in the Great Hall tomorrow."
Harry tried to say something, but Connor squeezed him hard enough that he lost his breath, and then left the hospital wing.
Harry leaned back against Draco's bed, and smiled.
"Mr. Potter. Thank you for coming."
Harry nodded calmly at Scrimgeour as Snape followed him into the Minister's office. This was a much larger office than the Head Auror's had been, Harry thought, but it didn't really look much different. The broader walls just meant Scrimgeour had more room to hang his photographs and his maps, and to put up a large portrait of a woman with shockingly red hair and direct blue eyes. The witch tilted her head when she saw Harry looking at her, and then stuck her tongue out.
"Don't mind Grandmother Leonora," said Scrimgeour, as he stood up and extended his hand. "She was Muggleborn. She couldn't help it. No notion of proper breeding at all."
The witch in the portrait made an insulting gesture at him.
"Why do you keep such an ill-bred portrait on your wall?" Snape asked, as he took the chair next to Harry's. He hadn't offered to shake hands with the Minister, and Harry didn't think it wise to press. He did clasp Scrimgeour's wrist, and then sat down in his own chair as Scrimgeour limped back to his desk. Percy Weasley sat at a smaller one behind him, scribbling something furiously. Now and then he lifted his head and peered at them like a rabbit looking out of its hole.
"I like her," said Scrimgeour. "Reminds me that I'm human, sometimes, no matter how high and mighty I become." He turned his mild gaze on Harry. "And I think that you're here for the same reasons, aren't you, Mr. Potter?"
Harry took a deep breath. He'd asked for a face-to-face meeting, knowing it would be difficult, but unable to believe that he could say the kinds of things he needed to say in a letter. Before the Maze, he knew, he would have found this much harder.
"I am, Minister," he said. "I have to know if you're my enemy now, and if so, what the means for the cause of the magical creatures of Great Britain."
Scrimgeour lifted an eyebrow. "I wouldn't have minded if this were just another of Tybalt Starrise's wild schemes, you know," he said. "Or if Umbridge had pushed far enough to lose her friends, and leave herself vulnerable to her enemies in the Ministry. But you are outside the Ministry, Potter, and, traditionally, it's been a very bad thing for my poor Ministry when a wizard with Lord-level power starts manipulating people inside her."
Harry nodded, once. "You've got to know that I won't stop, sir," he said quietly. "I want the anti-werewolf laws utterly gone. I want the webs that enslave the house elves and all the others gone. I'm perfectly willing to wait as long as I have to, but that's for the cause of making sure other people's free will is intact, not for making sure I comply with Ministry laws."
Scrimgeour leaned back and steepled his fingers. His yellow eyes were calm. "Why you, Potter? Why have the magical creatures chosen you as their champion? Or why did you choose to champion them?"
"It's both," said Harry, with a shrug. "Partly, of course, they need a powerful wizard to fracture the webs, and neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort are going to do it without making some bargain that would leave them worse off." He suppressed a groan of frustration when everyone in the room twitched at Voldemort's name. Really, it's just a word! "And partly, I want to see them free." He took a deep breath. Courage. You can do this. "I love free will, Minister. I love the idea of giving as many people as I can as many possibilities as I can."
"You could do that without freeing the magical creatures." Scrimgeour tilted his head. "In fact, some people might say that you could do it better by leaving the magical creatures tied in their webs. That way, there's no chance of, say, someone getting crushed by a giant's club, or raped by a centaur, unless they actually go to the places where those creatures live."
Harry winced. The centaurs are going to be problematic, too, aren't they? "Sir, I don't understand. What do you—"
And then he paused. They were using different definitions. He had never realized they would cause so much trouble.
"Sir," he said, "I consider the magical creatures people as much as I do wizards and witches. I think that might be the difference between us. You see your primary responsibility as being to humans. I see it as being to everyone. Of course the Ministry should provide services for them—that's what it says it does, anyway—but I think the services should be of the same kind as the ones it gives to humans." Harry leaned forward, feeling his heart bound and surge while Scrimgeour stared at him. "Don't just 'control and regulate' werewolves, for example. Give them the resources to bring someone who hurts them for being werewolves to trial. Don't just talk to the goblins, but negotiate with their hanarz as if she were a powerful witch or the leader of a foreign country. That's what I want to see happen, and what the Ministry really should want to make happen, since it claims to serve the wizarding world and not just wizards. You're not just Minister of witches and wizards, sir. You're Minister of centaurs and house elves and merfolk and unicorns and all the rest. Expand the covenant you've made with yourself and your duties. It's easy enough."
Scrimgeour went on staring at him. Then he said, "Mr. Potter, what you are asking is—" He went still, and looked at the far wall. Percy had stopped even pretending to scribble, and watched them openly.
"Big, I know," said Harry. "But it's really something that should have happened already. Think about it, sir." He could feel his impatience stretching, and forced himself to sit on it. He couldn't hurry Scrimgeour. Bad things happened when he did. "You want the Ministry to live up to its potential, its claims. It claims that it regards magical creatures just the same as wizards and witches. Everyone knows that's not true, but it sounds good, and there hasn't been a Minister who was concerned about making that part of its reputation true. You could be the first." He smiled as Scrimgeour glanced sharply at him. "And, yes, of course I'm saying that because I want them free. But if you want your Ministry to be everything it says it is, then I think you have to be willing to make those empty promises real."
Scrimgeour closed his eyes and held still for a long moment. Then he said, "We have wandered a long way from the original discussion of your manipulating people in the Ministry, Potter."
Harry shrugged. "This is the cause for which I'm most likely to manipulate them, Minister. Ministry laws about most of the creatures are outdated and ridiculous. As for Umbridge, she was part of the reason that I was sent to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to register myself as a Parselmouth. Putting her in charge of negotiating with them and protecting them was especially ridiculous. Of course I was going to strike back at her, to protect my allies and myself, but I didn't see any reason to stomp in with magic flaring around me. There are subtler ways."
"You are telling me that you would oppose me," said Scrimgeour.
"If you keep on going the way you have been." Harry met his eyes evenly. Snape was tense beside him, but he had not interfered. Harry was glad. "Minister, the world is going to change around me. I've finally accepted that. I want to change so much for magical creatures that the ripples are going to spread from that and affect other things and people in the wizarding world, no matter how much I might want to confine them. This is revolution. I'm going to try and make it as graceful and gentle a revolution as I can, but it's coming. I know that you have the ability to guide the Ministry through that intact. I'd be sorry to lose you as an ally. But I would rejoice if you could set the Ministry flowing with this new current."
Scrimgeour blinked several times. Then he closed his eyes, and said, "This is a grander vision than anything I came into office with."
Harry bowed his head, struck by the honesty of the admission. "I understand that, sir. I'm asking you to look beyond the Ministry and think even more about the wizarding world. But your people and your laws are all part of this. They're going to shift, and I think it should be a guided shift. And you'd be the best guide I know."
Scrimgeour sighed. "To make such a change, at my time of life," he said.
But Harry heard the undertone in his voice, and found a smile spreading across his face. Scrimgeour wasn't completely convinced, not yet. He would probably still hate Harry telling anyone in the Ministry what to do. But the vision had caught him. He was not the sort of person who ran from a problem. He made the impossible work when he thought it needed to, like keeping Harry from simply being returned to his parents once the Fugitivus Animus spell ended. And now Harry had fascinated him with this impossibility, and he wanted to see what he could do to make it work.
"The whole wizarding world is going to change, sir," said Harry. "And I think it'll take many years, longer than I'll live, even. But you can help start it."
Scrimgeour laughed abruptly, a deep and joyous sound. "Tybalt Starrise was in here babbling about revolution," he said. "I didn't listen to him. I owe the boy an apology for that, though not for threatening to curse me into invisibility and silence if I didn't stop questioning him."
Harry rolled his eyes. Tybalt, honestly. "To slow revolution, then, sir?" he asked, holding his hand out.
Scrimgeour met his eyes and clasped his wrist firmly. "Indeed," he said. "Merlin knows how we're going to do it, Potter, but you've convinced me that we're going to do it."
Harry caught a glimpse of Percy Weasley's face as he stood, and smiled to himself. Percy was caught between fiercely conflicting emotions, obviously. But then his shoulders straightened, and he gave Scrimgeour the look of someone who would follow him to the ends of the earth if necessary.
I'm glad that he has something of his own, now, and not just loyalty to Dumbledore, Harry thought, as he nodded to Scrimgeour and followed Snape out of the room. He switched the path of his thoughts then. He was wondering why his guardian had been so quiet during the conversation, when quite a bit of it must have been surprising for him.
"Sir?" he asked, and Snape looked at him. "Do you think that what I'm doing is mad?"
"No," said Snape. "I could see where you would lead us, into revolution, as early as second year, and I made the decision to follow you then." His voice was tranquil, though his eyes reflected a bit of amusement.
"Second year?" Harry tried to think of a time when he might have shown Snape a glimpse of the future in between being possessed by Tom Riddle and going mad, and couldn't identify it. "How?"
"Some people see with clearer eyes than others, Harry," said Snape, like the smug bastard he was, and then ushered him ahead of him and out of the Ministry, refusing to answer any more questions.